Saturday, August 8, 2015

Why I Might Just Love Artifact Weapons

It is still early in development and there is a lot that can change and we do not know all the information about them yet but I can imagine based on what they did say and it makes me think that artifact weapons might be the biggest step in the right direction for warcraft and I really like it.

Now as I said, none of us are really sure how it works. But if it works like I think they meant it to work I would not be adverse to seeing artifacts for every single gear slot. Why? Because artifacts, at least as it seems, completely remove RNG from the game. I love that.

Excuse me while I step away from the keyboard and do a happy dance for a minute.

~dances the jig because elves do an awesome jig~

I am back and I will try to keep my excitement in check, but the idea that there is something in the game that actively removes RNG from the playing field is beyond exciting to me. I've had dreams about this, I have written letters to santa asking for the removal of RNG for christmas, I have said here and everywhere over and over that I hate RNG and would love to see it removed. So yeah, getting a weapon that is not RNG and then just making me have to work to empower it, I can really get down with that. Its power becomes something I work for, not something I luck into. That is awesome.

Depending on how it is designed that means that someone that never steps into a raid could have a weapon that is as powerful as someone that is in a world first guild. Because artifacts, as they explained, get more powerful the more active you are doing anything from questing to raids to PvP that means everyone is on the same level playing field and the person who actually works the hardest earns the more powerful weapon. You see that... Work... Earn. That is how gear should have always been from the beginning. No RNG. This is why I am excited.

Is this the future of warcraft where people have to work for gear? Where people have to actually earn something? It brings a tear to my eye.

No more will I hear people say things like "My DPS would be better if I had a decent wepaon" because everyone will have the same weapon. Now if your weapon is poor, it is your own damn fault for not leveling it up. You can no longer blame back RNG, you can only blame yourself. I am so loving the ever living hell out of this. If someone says that now I an say, "well maybe if you got off your ass and put some work into it you would have a better weapon."

I always hated seeing lazy players and poor players that have better gear because they are lucky. This would correct one of those problems. No more good weapons for lazy players. Poor players could still end up with a good weapon by working hard and maybe, just maybe, by working hard to level their weapon they will become better players. So this is win win if you ask me.

I do have some concerns about it however. If it is a huge grind to level up your weapon how is that going to affect alts? How is that going to affect someone that starts playing 6 months after the expansion came out? How is that going to affect me if I switch from marksman to BM and now need to level my BM weapon? This is a pretty big concern of mine personally.

If it is not handled correctly it could be an alt killer. I do not know how they are planning on making them level but I do have a hope. I hope that the power level of the weapon is on the character level, not the weapon. So, for example, I have 6000 experience on my MM weapon and switch to BM that my BM weapon has 6000 experience even if I never used it. Because lets face it, it is going to suck if you have to level up three different weapons for the three different specs.

For alts I would like to see them add a 200% boost or something, so if you have a character with a higher level weapon that character levels theirs faster, perhaps that might be nice.

And for late comers like the person who joins the expansion six months after it came out, something like the conquest system is now. Where you can earn more than the set xxx per week if you are late to collecting. So if you can only gain 1000 weapon experience per week and started 16 weeks late, you can actually gain 16,000 to catch up before you get locked to the 1000 a week like everyone else. And perhaps a 150% boost to help them catch up as well.

But outside of alts, second specs and late comers, I don't really see many other issues I might have.

A weapon that is as strong as you are willing to wok for it to be?

No "welfare" here, no RNG here, no luck here, just work your ass off and get stronger. I might just love artifact weapons.

There is only one thing blizzard can do that could really screw this up in epic proportions (which means I expect blizzard to do this). If they put in mandatory requirements such as "you must do PvP for this", or "you must beat this boss on myhtic for this", or "you must do 250 daily quests for this". That would completely destroy the awesomeness of an item like that. Making anything mandatory would ruin it. Even if it is something super simple, if anything is mandatory, it will completely screw this up. Some people do not like to PvP, some people to not like to raid and some people do not like to quest. As long as they keep to what they said, "anything you do" can increase its power, then blizzard might very well have a winner here. But if they lick anything mandatory to it, they just ruined a great idea.

In truth, if it works the way it seems, I could see myself having a lot of fun with it. Finally the game makes people work for their gear again instead of relying on RNG for it, or luck for it. I have no issue with working to get power.... but I do have an issue with RNG, and that is why I might really love this idea. I can't wait to find out more.

31 comments:

I believe that artifacts are advanced through obtaining relics. It doesn't take many guesses to work out that these will only drop in raids, apart from a small handful of 'scrub relics' that will be behind gated heroics or other 'special snowflake' content.

This is why I'm waiting for more details and to snoop in the beta forums. I want to see how much of Legion is fenced off for Blizzards precious little darlings the raiders.

My attitude to Blizz is simple. I don't trust them after the flying debacle and I want goodies. No goodies, no cash. No fly, no buy.

I'd normally be more moderate and laid back about this but I no longer trust Blizzard.

RNG tho... That'll still be an element. RNG will decide who gets the relics that drop from the raid bosses, the relics that upgrade your weapon. Once more I suspect that we'll get worthless "sh*t & spit" relics for those who don't have time for raiding.

The raiders then say "Oh well, you play wrong so you deserve nothing while wee dance on the mailbox in SW hoping to catch people inspecting our gear so we can have an ego-wank".

Blizz have seen what "raid or die" can do to the subscriber levels. Will they learn? No. Not until people get fired, idiots like Ion Gonnacostus.

Anyway... rant over, lol. I hope you find something in Legion to give you hope and inspire you to keep playing. For an old cynic like me it'd take a miracle, and Blizz don't do those these days.

They drop is old content, if the few examples they gave during the announcement are representative. Like for ashbringer you need to collect shards around ICC. So no, I do not think the base artifact will involve raiding. Not to mention they say you get it early on, which means it is a quest, not a raid. Because there will be no such things as a level 101 raid. So it will, or should, have absolutely nothing to do with raids. Killing raid bosses will help level it, but so will doing quests and PvP and everything else.

I am waiting to hear more information. Like I want to know what is up with flying before they even start selling preorders. But from the announcement alone the expansion does not look to be too impressive. Seems to be more of the same, which is not good. I hope I am wrong.

The base Artifact will not require raiding, no, but it needs relic pieces to upgrade it (the artifact equivalent of gems or item enchants I guess) to keep improving it. These relic pieces will almost certainly be gated off in raids and mythic in order to keep the leet kiddies sweet and re-inflate their epeens.

You get the item shortly after the expansion start from a class/spec quest, and then have to upgrade it as you go with the relics. Relics will take the place of weapons in the raid drops. "Sh*t & spit" relics (green) for 'evil casual scrub filth' and blue/epic for Blizzards pets.

There is nothing wrong with that. Think gems now, if they do it that way. Normal mode raiders would get the +35, heroic a +50 and mythic a +75. But the base weapon is the best anyone can get, even if they do not raid. I am sure there will also be quest only options, like maybe a +10 or something.

If, and that is a big if, they keep it small, like I mentioned, it is no big deal. It gives a boost to the people that do the higher content and does not leave out the people that don't. It is about as fair as you can get.

Check out MMO-C's wrap up today of post-announcement dev comments. There was apparently a statement that there will be no artifact catch-up mechanism for alts, and they are thinking about a way to make spec switching "less painful".

Just finished listening to that and I am extremely disheartened by it. How cab blizzard, once again, make a mistake like this. It boggles the mind that they can continue to make the same mistakes over and over again. Is there anyone that works for that company that can think long term?

Well, I'm finished then. Not buying Legion. I enjoy levelling alts, changing spec and messing about. If they are left broken like this then it proves that Blizz are focussing almost exclusively on raids again and will leave casuals completely shafted.

Not gonna buy Legion. Just another pile of basement crap.

I think they are not looking towards the future at all tbh, maybe this will be the last expansion before they ditch wow.

Sad to see it dying in a stinking pile of sh*t in a basement somewhere, but the way Blizz have behaved recently, they deserve it.

I really can not believe that they are trying even harder to kill alts and spec switching. It is still very early in development. If we as a community voice our opinions in a clear, loud and respectful manner perhaps we can show them the errors of their ways before this development gets to far along. It worked with flying, took too long if you ask me, but we got them to change their mind there. We absolutely need to get them to change their mind here. But just being rude and raging will not get them to change their mind. We need to present well thought out explanations why we believe that not having a system for alts is a bad idea. Just saying "I don't like it" is perfectly fine for an opinion, but without offering more, like why you do not like it, will not get them to change anything.

We have about a year to change their mind. I propose we start working on them now.

Ironically, what this means is that the only good reason to have alts will be as a mat farming and gold-producing consortium supporting your main. This is exactly what Blizz has said they do not like about alts, they want them to be played as a way to experience other play styles. Yet their design prohibits this and encourages the very thing they said they do not want.

Not only can they not think long term, but there seems to be no one there who grasps the fundamental project management concept of implementation mechanisms supporting and advancing basic goals.

GE: You're right about rage not being the answer, that's why I almost never post on the forums. I vote with my wallet. It's the only vote that counts.

The problem is that they won't listen until the bean counters begin to squeal. They only seem to pay attention to a very vocal elitist minority, viewing them as the representative cross section of the WoW population. We both know that regarding those guys as representative of the majority is a really dumb move, but Blizz seem to do dumb very well these days.

The only thing that got flying brought back was the deafening clatter of feet heading for the exit when they said "Nope! It's gone forever!".

No idea what they are thinking of with alts. They tried to make people 'play properly' in Cata by making heroics harder (and failed). Maybe they are trying again by trashing alts to force people to progress a single toon further and 'play properly'. Guesswork from me that, maybe a load of cobblers, but we'll have to wait and see.

Will Blizz ever learn? My wallet has, I can assure you. It don't drop it's drawers for a cheap sales stunt these days.

Fiannor: I really like playing alts, levelling them. It helps prolong the game rather than getting bogged down on the max lev treadmill and getting very bored, switching to other games and cancelling my account.

That is very blizzard like. They say one thing and then do another. At the end of wrath they removed volley from hunters because the spell felt like magic and they do not want hunters to use magic and then they made the survival mastery one that boosts magical damage. The are well known for saying one thing and doing another. It is kind of sad that this type of incompetence is still around in the development department.

@Speedy J

You are right that money talks. So many people quit when they announced flying was being removed, that is what got it changed. Sadly, people are not going to quit now to protest something that is not even coming for a year. So the only thing we have are our voices at the moment because not paying now is not going to let them know you are unhappy about something that is going to happen a year from now.

It depends how much work is required to level up a weapon for the average player. 200 hours?, 2000 hours? . it's supposed keep someone busy till next expansion when it becomes junk like current bis gear.

I am thinking it is going to be like the old valor grind. You can get 1000 experience per week. Different tasks get you different amounts like 5 for completing a quest, 25 for killing a rare, 100 for completing and dungeon, 40 for every raid boss killed, 50 for a battleground win, etc. Something like that.

If they do it like that then I see it being no problem, or not so much. The typical valor capping never took all that long and could be done in just a couple of hours once per week.

If they do it that way I see it being no problem. However, over the course of an entire expansion, that could easily approach 200 hours.

At least they are telling us all their bad decisions before hand instead of lying to us like they did with flying by keep telling us "we are thinking about it" when the decision to not add it had already been made a long time ago. They are giving people the chance to not buy the game right away by telling them they screwed up before it even comes out.

True enough. Something must have gone badly wrong at Blizz for things to look this poor though. They seem to be trying to 'pants' their way through things.

It's obvious that the 'A Team' no longer do WoW development or design and they are left with people of dubious competence.

If they weren't planning to axe wow relatively soon then heads would have rolled over the lost 4.4m subs in the last 6 months. Nothing has changed, so it's obviously not a priority for them any more compared to Hearthstone and other products.

Im currently looking for decent games to play. Not sure what recommendations you'll make but I'm trying Dragon Age Inquisition atm, also Elite Dangerous and regularly cruise Steam for new products (Craft The World is really good, a cross between Terraria and Dwarf Fortress).

I might go back to WoW if they do something to bring in 'gear gain assists' like the old valor point system. I still maintain that Wrath was the best expansion in WoW and that things have got steadily worse since then. They are focussing on pleasing a fanatical, foaming at the mouth minority rather than feeling the pulse of the majority of the community.

FF14 with the new expansion added a lot of the things I liked in wow that they removed, so for me at least that would be an option. Not to mention I do like the game and always liked the single player console games, so I have a connection to the franchise already. If I go I think that would be the top place for me to land.

a) they'll screw up, they have too, it's now tradition :Pb) there will be RNG on Relic drops - but it should be less problematic than currently (still someone with Grumpy's legendary luck will have time for cursing)c) there will be more random secondary stat BS (cause it worked out so well...)d) they don't understand the value of alts. Alts are essential to create a good environment for newbies (mostly dungeons, but it's nice to meet someone in the world at least sometimes...). But don't worry, they are on their best way to screw it up even moree) if they make changing of Artifact with spec anything but automatic the number of healers and tanks will be at a new all time low .....

*sigh* I really would like to play the game again that I loved so much. But I know going in again will just be a lot of pain.

You know what is really sad, I agree with everything you said, it will probably all come true. So much potential to be awesome and so much potential to screw it up. I just hope they lean to awesome. We deserve it.

If it is a dud, clean it, change out the barrel, put a new scope on it, but you definitely don't decide to put your spouses best diamond in the stock.

Yeah, I know it is a game and fantasy at that, but somehow over the years, blizzard has been trying to put some type of real world bits and pieces in the game. That should be how weapons are improved.

Want to make my bow better - how about a better string that I make out of Roger the Impleader's pet cats gut that is found in so-so dungeon. And it has to be taken to a npc blacksmith found at every capital city to be fashion and put on. None, of this raid to get it, for that would really leave out 80% of the players.

You get the weapon early, so it will be like a level 100 or level 101 weapon. It will level with you as you level. As it levels it has its own talent tree so you can choose how to make it stronger. Everything you do from soloing, dungeons, quests, PvP, raids, etc, will give it experience so it levels up as the expansion goes on and it keeps getting stronger. So the more active you are and the more you do, the better your weapon will be.

Except you should go to another player character ... maybe even 3 or 4 of them before your new bow-string is ready. Let's start of with a leather-maker, who accidentally needs ingredients from the alchemist, who in turn needs herbs...

hmm, another player? Sorry, but no. maybe on your server they be cool or even in your guild, but on my server, nah - most are asshats.

But, if blizzard gets off their butts (because they are so big from eating all that cooking they are learning) and finally (dare I say it - say, say), finally allow CRZ trading, then yah, it would be good.